


Haste

by Big_Spicy_Garlean_Fucker



Series: Garlean Prompt Collection [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Abuse, Death, Drabble, Drama, Father-Son Relationship, Ficlet, Gore, Grief, Madness, Other, Possession, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 19:07:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18394532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Big_Spicy_Garlean_Fucker/pseuds/Big_Spicy_Garlean_Fucker
Summary: Prompt:A Dream Within a Dream: importance, running out of time, concern.Varis makes a decision about his wayward- dead -rebellious- dead -monstrous son.Elidibus is not pleased.





	Haste

Varis stands before the steps of his throne staring up at the ivory standard. It’s always comforted him, the chain links of Garlemald’s insignia serving to remind him that they are  _united_ , and all who refuse will be put to the sword along with the rest of the savages. But now when he looks up at it, his  _beloved_ Garlemald no longer fills his chest with warmth and pride. It is empty, as it has been since the day Solus popped out of nowhere and decided to ruin his life. A snarl twists his lips as he remembers the grandstanding bastard in all his glory just  _smiling_  as the world came crashing down around him. He shivers.

It is then that the familiar clink of sabatons on carpet reaches his ears, and he turns. He knows the sound but the gait is  _wrong_ , this is  _not his son_  and he has to remind himself every damn time he looks into the placid face of his boy. His  _dead_  boy.

“Father. I pray you have good reason for abandoning the front.” Zenos offers no salute, no greetings, no social niceties as usual. Elidibus isn’t even  _acting_ , and already he’s thrown Varis for a loop. The Emperor steels himself and responds in a worn voice, like gravel stepped over one too many times.

“How could I remain there while the rumor that my son is possessed by a demon spreads like a sickness here at home?” More than a handful of soldiers had seen Zenos rise from the dead after his fight with the Warrior of Light, and word spread through the ranks until it reached Garlemald thanks to more than a few spies and rumor-mongers. “I will not be made to fight for the throne a second time. You  _told_  me you knew what you were doing, that you’d destroy Eorzea’s champion with the ease one might swat a fly. And here you stand.”

Zenos averts his gaze, looking every bit the scolded child. Varis’s heart  _aches_. “A minor setback. They will not escape me again.” Soon enough, Zenos stares directly into Varis’s eyes as his tone sharpens. “Where is your grandsire? I would have words with him.”

“No.” Varis folds his thick arms and sneers. “Tell me about this…  _minor setback_.”

Zenos’s face remains perfectly still, yet his eyes flash with unholy rage. “You  _must_  forgive me, Your Radiance, for I am not  _used_  to this flesh suit I now inhabit.  _Terribly_  difficult to control.” His dry tone earns a rise from Varis, whose face contorts in blind fury as he grabs a thick lock of Zenos’s hair and  _pulls_. “Ow.” says Zenos, feeling not a lick of pain. “You wound me, Father.”

“You are  _not my son_.” Varis snarls, raw grief swelling between sharp-edged words. “It is no  _wonder_ you could not best the Warrior of Light – you are  _weak_ , and all of Garlemald knows you for what you are.”

“IF you may recall,” Zenos hisses through grit teeth, “Your  _son_  could not even put that savage creature in the grave before taking his own life,  _coward_  that he was-”

Varis yanks  _hard_  and Zenos crashes into him, hair ripped from his now bleeding scalp. He casts the golden fluff aside and wrenches Zenos up by the skull, massive hand quivering with the urge to  _crush_. “Your immortality will not save you if you speak ill of my son again.” He breathes, and Zenos winces as the nerve impulses start firing all around his head. It’s where his essence is concentrated, and he  _definitely_  feels that.

“Ware your surroundings,  _Father_.” Zenos’s ceruleum blue eyes flick left and right.  _“_ We have company.”

Varis looks up to see a white-robed Elezen standing at the end of the hall, accompanied by two  _very_ concerned looking guards. Regular ones at that, as his personal guard, Julia and Annia, now stand beside him watching Zenos with interest. They know fully well what the Ascians are doing, yet their duty is to protect Varis from physical harm, not emotional. Varis looks back to Zenos and the bastard is  _smiling_.

“Find a new body to play with,” Varis whispers, breath coming short as his pulse goes through the roof. “I can’t  _fucking_  take this.”

“You are weak too,” Zenos purrs, “You poor, stupid mortal.”

Varis throws him to the ground just to shut him up, stepping over Zenos’s armored form on his way out. The guards flatten themselves against the wall along with the Elezen researcher, who’d merely come to inform the Emperor that Eorzea was now susceptible to a good bit of Garlean-style genocide. The Black Rose was ready for mass production – and Varis won’t hear of it until tomorrow, or whenever he decides to sit on his throne and play Emperor again.

No, now he must  _act_. He’s going to kill Zenos, burn the body so Elidibus can’t mess with it again. His son is  _dead_  – he should not walk –  _injured –_  he’s hurt him – _dead –_  not Zenos, it’s not him,  _why can’t he understand_?

 _‘How? Julia and Annia won’t be able to do it. Too many eyes. I have to-’_  His throat tightens, and he swallows a thick lump into his chest where it gnaws and screams and churns.  _‘I have to do it.’_  He’s almost running now, stride taking him through the palace to his private quarters all the way on the eastern side of the building. It’s a five minute walk and a two-minute jog, and he’s here in one and a half. He locks himself in his room without a single care for his duties or himself – he has to kill his own damned son and  _why did it have to come to this?_

He reaches for the dagger in his desk – his gun will leave a trace, this will  _not_  – and suddenly there’s a knock at his door. Before he can shout the intruder away something  _crunches_  and the door swings open to reveal Zenos, a guard laying on the floor with his skull caved in. Zenos flicks his gauntleted hand from side to side, spraying little flecks of blood all over the place. He shuts the door.

“You’re here,” Varis breathes, and he sees not his son (he was always so  _good_ at killing, his little Zenos, his  _monster-_ ) but the dark-eyed demon possessing him. “Good.” And he flings the dagger right at Zenos’s face – Elidibus doesn’t know how to interpret the third eye screaming at him to  _dodge_  and jerks, a trickle of silvery red seeping from his forehead. He hits the floor and the dagger pushes right through his brain, and there he lies motionless.

Varis looks at him and an ugly sob wrenches through his throat, rips its way into the air and hangs there like a noose. He rushes to Zenos and pulls the dagger out, wrapping what he can of the boy’s hair around his rent third eye so as not to feel its pain as his own. There’s blood –  _so much blood_  and it plasters Zenos’s hair to his forehead, weeps down his tender cheeks and bubbles from his lips. Varis pulls Zenos to his chest and holds him – he can’t  _think_  of how he’s going to burn the body, images of dismemberment and cremation flashing through his tormented mind.

“I’m so sorry,” he gasps, over and over and over again. “Zenos, I’m so sorry.” Elidibus is nowhere to be seen, his essence now dormant in the corpse just watching,  _waiting_  for his moment to strike. He observes Varis’s grief with as much interest as he would stare at a wall, internally rolling his eyes at the waves of emotion coming off the man. Varis wails into the crown of Zenos’s hair, fingers carding through the now matted golden locks that were once so soft, so lovely, so pure. He remembers the bright-eyed boy of three years, running around his ankles with a toy sword waving in the air. The young lad of seven, sitting at the table with his gaze downcast and a too-long silence between them. The Legatus of sixteen, cutting down the Dalmascan army with one hand behind his back (or so he heard). And now he is  _dead_  – well and truly dead, one less Ascian to worry about, his son finally put to rest.

_‘Not… like… this.’_


End file.
